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An Epiphany About Breaking From Seminary w/ Audrey Thorne & Carter Grant · A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to a Matter of Faith, a Presby podcast, the podcast where we respond to your questions and comments on issues of faith, social justice, and church life.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Don't be afraid to write in and ask your question because if it matters to you, it matters to us and it just might be a matter of faith,
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Whether it be faith in God, faith in others, or faith in yourself.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: We are brought to you by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and Unbound the interactive journal on Christian Social Justice for the Presbyterian Church usa.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: I am your host, Lee Cato,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: And I'm your host Simon Dune.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Without further ado, let's dive into today's questions.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Well, hello everyone.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Welcome again to a matter of Faith, the Presby podcast.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: We are in a new yearly.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: The year is now as of, not as of this recording, but as of the time this episode comes out, 2023, happy New Year Yield.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Happy New Year everyone.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Happy New Year.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: I hope it was a good one.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I hope it was a safe one.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Whatever you did.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I do know I was in the middle of the mountains and I grilled a steak.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: At least I hope I did,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Maybe a few steaks.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a few steaks.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: But I hope everyone had a safe New Year's.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: I hope everyone, you know, got to spend it with the people they love and wherever you were, I hope it was a good one.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: And you know, I'm just really glad I didn't hear fireworks.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: It's not a fan nor are, nor are my dogs.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: And I hope everyone's dog is okay.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Everyone's pets are okay because New Year's and the 4th of July are when most pets go missing because of fireworks.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Just so you
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Know.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Well we hope everyone had a good New Year and that you are enjoying the start to the year of our Lord 2020
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: .
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: 2023, the year of our Lord numerology will say, what is it, two plus two equals four equals seven.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Next year might be better cuz it's an infinity year if you'd like.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: That kind of thing.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: It's
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Eight.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: And as it is New Year's, I don't know if we've talked about this on the podcast before, but some people really like to s to make New Year's resolutions when a new year begins.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I've had mixed results on New Year's resolutions.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: I've had a few that have stuck.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I wanna say most of them have not.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: To be perfectly honest.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Not saying that people shouldn't do them if they think that it works for them or if they're interested in trying it, but I'm hoping that for this year, maybe I'll do a little more effort into just like understanding some of the, the terms that we use in the Christian tradition.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: and like understanding just what they mean.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Because sometimes they think I'm just like, oh yeah, that's what that is, but I don't really think about it.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I get that.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Like this terms and
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Only we just throw around then we don't,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, transfiguration, oh, resurrection.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, I don't, whatever it is.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Or this term.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Epiphany Lee.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Did you have an epiphany about Epiphany?
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I had an epiphany that I really need to know what this word mean,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: .
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: And so I had this question, but I'm not the only one who has wondered what does Epiphany mean.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: And since Epiphany is in the Christian calendar is coming up.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: It's a good time to talk about it.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: So I went ahead and Googled this just to get us started because I had to start with the, uh, the master Google search.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: And what I found is the name Epiphany comes from the Greek epiphany, meaning, appearance or manifestation and refers to the manifestation of Jesus Christ to the world.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: The holiday is also called the Feast of Epiphany.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Theophan had some previous podcast conversations, whether it be in English or in Spanish, about the importance of Three King's Day in other traditions.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: So feel free to go check that out.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: But Lee, what does Epiphany mean to you and what do you think of this definition and just the importance of epiphany in, in our faith?
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: I so epiphany often does get overlooked specifically in the US context.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Everybody's like, well what does that mean?
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: And we always in the nativity scene is like the wise men, you know, coming to bring the gifts to Jesus.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: But that is, that happened a little after the birth.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: It didn't happen like right when it happened, you know, like they weren't, they, this happened, like this happened when a few, I mean maybe even months afterwards because it took the, it took the Magi a long time to get to where they needed to go.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Um, and you know, I, whenever I went to Israel Palestine, I was like, how did, how long did it take people to get places?
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Because it had to take, people play a long time to get anywhere because it's just all mountains and it seems that it, you know, the, the Magi or the wise people, I always like to think it wasn't just men.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: I mean the three wise men is, we just made that up.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: The three that is not even biblical, that's not even a thing.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know where a three came from, but I guess because of the, the three gifts, they just happened to think it was three people.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: But you know, people give the same gift all the time.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: You know, it could have just been a lot of people with the same stuff.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: They didn't have a lot, I mean variety then.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: So, but I do think for me it is kind of this like, it's almost like a magical time for me.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: I don't, I, you think of the Magi, the Magii were more than just rich people.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: They were more than just people with gold and Franken Sense and Mer they were seen as these like astrologers.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: They were seen as people who were wise.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: They were seen as people who had this like different sense of like knowing the world.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: And so they kind of are, were more of like a spiritual thing.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: And so whenever, you know, they went to see the child, this realization that this is God with us is kind of like what we say.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: When we have an epiphany, something just kind of hits us and we get it.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: And so it wasn't until a little bit later when a lot of people just realize that, oh you know, this is, this is what this is.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Um, and I just think it's a very magical time when you, when you think about what it means to approach like God with us Emmanuel, you approach that idea and you know, you, you see it and you kind of can read it and you kind of can see it from the outside, but actually approaching it and learning about it and having these kind of moments of what that really means in our lives, like that to me is what Epiphany is.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: It's just this time of, of really understanding and gaining wisdom.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: And this si this other sin.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: I don't like to say Sixth Sense because of that movie that was with Haley Joe Osmond.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: But you do gain another, you do seem to gain a spiritual, spiritual senses in your life in ways, if that makes any sense.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: So it's not just a time of the calendar, it's also a season, everyone.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: And so there are, there is a season of Epiphany to where this is kind of a journey, but I wish people would, you know, uplifted a lot because that's when technically Christmas is over.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: You know, Christmas ain't just a day.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know why people take their Christmas lights and everything down.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: We just getting started when, when this the Jan when it's uh, December 25th.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: So it is the season and it's, it's uh, it's kind of a magical one for me.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: And I appreciate what you said about how long did it take the Magi to get anywhere?
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: How long did it take anyone to get anywhere?
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Because it also demonstrates that I think we, well, let me back up.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: It demonstrates that it takes time to arrive somewhere, right?
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: It isn't something that just hits you into descends upon you.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Though we use the word epiphany in that sense.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Like, oh, I got it now, I got it.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: , we make it sound like it's instantaneous.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: But actually it's a process, it's a journeying process to then arrive at a destination, at a decision at a point in time.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: And I think we need to remember that because it's not this quick thing that we just, oh, we get it.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I don't just look at something and be like, yeah, I can read that.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I often need to like read it, process it, understand it, and then I'm like, okay, now I, I get what this means or I know what to do.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: So just reminding folks that epiphany is not instantaneous.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: It's a process.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: And it's also about like, you know, it's, it's so, it's, it's meant for us to experience, like when we're talking about gold and frankincense and mer, you know, those things are about our senses, like the sight of gold or the smell of incense and, and and frankincense and mer, all those things are meant to kind of invoke our like bodies and like our embodiment also as followers of Christ or also as people of faith.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: And so what that means to us too, this is all about incarnation really and like how God is walking among us, but also how we are also embodying that as well and being in Israel and Palestine and smelling these things actually in that place.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: But also seeing the fact that, you know, Jesus was not necessarily born in a stable but in a cave.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: That was an epiphany for one because it completely changes your idea.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: And there's also this moment where we went to this thing called the milk grotto and it was where it says that Mary and Joseph and the baby rested and also where Mary fed her baby, it said that possibly that might be where the wise people went.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: And I do think it is such an embodied thing.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Like you go down in here and there is a picture of Mary breastfeeding Jesus and we could just all imagine that like, you know, and that's a very human thing to do and and giving gifts to this.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: It's just all kind of like an epiphany moment that's just kind of a lot to take in too.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: And I just imagine, you know, being in that space and seeing all this happen and you know, it's just kind of a time to imagine too.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Um, cuz we'll never know exactly.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: But I do think in many ways we have pictured it happening in just a very narrow minded way when our Sunday school books show us what it looked like and this is how the wise men were dressed and this is who it was.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: And it's like none of that really might have hap like, we don't know what it looked like and we got it wrong the first step cuz it wasn't a stable, it was a hole in the ground, which is really wild to think about.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Um, that that is where this all took place.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: And so it completely changes the mentality of what it was and how crowded it could have been because apparently there were animals there and it was a small space.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Like I couldn't imagine.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: So I do think it, it's all kind of an epiphany thing that we should all be in a process of, you know, thinking about and imagining in different ways.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Well folks, let us, let us know what you think and what your experiences are with epiphany.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Feel free to write into faith podcast psa.org.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: And I don't know, is there a phrase like, happy epiphany, we say Merry Christmas, happy Easter.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: I don't know, what did I know in that?
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Um, whenever we talked about the Three Kings,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Three Kings Day Yeah.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Stuff.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: I know there was something that Owen and Rosa may have said, but y'all should go listen to that one again.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a great
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Episode.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: And maybe there are other parts of the Christian tradition where folks have a saying or a phrase that for greeting in relation to Epiphany.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: And if so, yeah, write in and let us know what it is and what you like to say.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: We can just say imagine.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, imagine now I'm just thinking of the John Legend song though.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: .
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, imagine.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, I don't know.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Just go have an epiphany.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Go have an epiphany.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Start the process.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Appreciate the process.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: And speaking of processes, we are about to get to the next step in the process of this episode with our wonderful guests.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: So cue that transition.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Well we are so excited to be joined on this episode of a Matter of Faith a Presby podcast by two special guests.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Joining us is Audrey Thorn and Carter Grant, who are both Master of Divinity students at Princeton Theological Seminary.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Audrey and Carter, thanks so much for being on the podcast.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having us.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Thanks.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: It's
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: A pleasure and I'm really grateful to you both for agreeing to come on the podcast cuz you both have had very interesting journeys both in seminary and through seminary.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: And we have a question written in asking about maybe not always the, uh, typical path through seminary education.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: So the question reads, I'm considering taking a break from my seminary education, but have some worries about it.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Has anyone else done this?
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: What was your experience like?
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Also, what is the value in stepping away from grad school education for a bit in general?
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: What do you all have to have to say to that or can relate to that from your own experiences?
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: Well, I can say that I didn't really mean to take a break from my seminar seminary education.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: That wasn't really my initial plan.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: So I was at Princeton previously doing my MA degree from 2017 to 2019 and I did an MA because I had no intention of being ordained or going into ministry.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: I just thought I was gonna try to do higher education, maybe do a PhD.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: So I did that degree, finished that degree and went into work in ministry.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: I was working at Tokyo Union Church, um, in Tokyo, Japan for the past three years.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: And it was like through that work that I was doing at that church that I felt a sense of call to ministry.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: So that's the reason why I've ended up coming back to do my MDiv.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: And I think that like for me, the value of taking that time away was that I figured out what I actually wanted to do.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: I, when I came to PR seminary the first time, I knew I wanted to go, but I didn't really know why and I couldn't really articulate like to myself or even to other people, um, why I was going.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: I just felt like this kind of inner sense that it was what I needed to do.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Um, so for me graduating and going into work in ministry was like absolutely critical for me to find my way back to seminary and figure out what, what it was that I actually wanted to do.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: So I would like strongly encourage people who are thinking of taking a break to to do so.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: I think sometimes that can be super fruitful.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: Seminary is hard.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: It's like definitely not for everyone.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: It's not for every stage of life.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: And I think that's kind of like discernment you can do when you're not in seminary can be really, really fruitful.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: It definitely was for me.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: So
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: What about you Carter?
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: What, uh, tell us a little bit about your journey and what, what you would say to the person asking this question.
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: Well, first of all, a longtime listener, first time caller.
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: So happy to be here, um, to be with you all today.
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: And you know what?
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: Honestly, if you're asking yourself this question that's already a sign, a great sign that you are in the right place, that you are discerning in the right way.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: The worst thing you can do is to go through seminary, go through any master's degree, but especially seminary.
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: It's really not great to go through seminary and not have extreme self-awareness and questioning yourself, you know, a time to question yourself and your beliefs.
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: That's the point of seminary.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: And so the fact that you're thinking about this already is a really good sign.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: My break from seminary was very much planned it, uh, a little bit unlike Audrey's, so I'm still within the same degree program just as the masters of divinity.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: I finished two years during my second year.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: It was, we could call it like the all covid year where we were online, a hundred percent of our classes.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: Um, and everything, all of our meetings, organizations, et cetera, were all online.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: And honestly, I felt like I experienced a bit of a derailing or a regression and my knowledge and in my like self-esteem or regarding my call and such.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: And I felt so ill prepared to be a pastor.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: I I was at the end, close to the end of my second year and I thought, wow, if I graduated a year from now, this is not gonna be good.
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: I need to have some more time, but also some more experiences to challenge myself and to learn that I just honestly was not getting in my second year being at all online.
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: Um, but also just being a, a tough time with the pandemic and such.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: And so for my, I guess you could say break the, I went to, um, the Bowery Missions women's shelter and I was a, a chaplain or I guess the only chaplain at the Bowery Mission Women's Shelter, um, in Harlem, in New York City.
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: And that's where I met Simon in the city.
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: And so that was already a great gift from it, but it was just such a valuable time to have, I got to learn about myself and about my gifts and I don't know, just like it was great to get away from the microcosm of school because in all of these schools, but I would say especially seminary with how we're supposed to be so intentional in our community building, it becomes this microcosm where you don't understand what's going on in the around in the outside world.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: And even if you follow the news, which you should, it's like, you can't really, um, it's, it's just hard to be a part of the outside world, I guess.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: And it, I feel like it almost like morphs your brain into thinking about, um, just the immediate immediate right and not about the larger effect what's going on.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: And then it could be an even harder, um, transition to back into quote unquote the real world or just to your call journey after, after graduation.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: So I'm really thankful for my time, but I think that, and this is where you should get Simon, you should say this.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: I think that if you're already asking yourself this question of if I should take a break, that is a great sign that you will probably be an amazing pastor that because you're already, you know, exhibiting this self-awareness, um, in discernment that um, is really, really important for all of us as clergy because as clergy we're going to be given power that we don't understand and that we're not really ready for.
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: And it's not going to be a, a good thing if you don't already have this, um, sense of like discernment and awareness of your gifts in awareness of your presence at the table before you get to that, to your first call.
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: So I think that's all really all good stuff.
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: So go at it, take that break if you need it, if you can
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Really appreciate what you both have shared.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: And being friends with a lot of seminary students or seminary alum, you know, working for the Presbyterian Church usa I know a lot of folks who have been to seminary and one of the first things that, especially the people I know who are more fresh, I guess fresh seminary grads say is, well they didn't teach me how to do this in seminary.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: You know, the many aspects of being a pastor or being in leadership in the church, they didn't teach me how to budget, they didn't teach me about how to navigate this social dynamic.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: I can read Hebrew and understand Greek, but I dunno how to do X thing.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: And that's not saying that Hebrew and Greek aren't super important to a seminary education and theological education, but I think something that's interesting that you both have done in your journeys is that you've given yourself a chance to have a little bit of that experience about what it means to be either in a congregational setting or working with people on the ground in very real world settings and contexts where there's justice issues and things like that, but not in a way that it's, it's just the field requirement necessarily for a seminary education.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: And so I'm curious what you've learned from some of those experiences for you Audrey in Tokyo and, uh, for you Carter in New York, what are some of those things that you think you learned that now re I guess you would say inform what you see, what you learn about in your seminary degree that maybe you wouldn't have had had you not taken that gap year exp gap year years experience?
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: That's a really great question and it's 100% true that you don't learn in seminary.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: Like a lot of the things that you actually need to know how to do to be a good pastor.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: And I think one of the primary things that you don't really learn, learn in seminary is just how to like love people.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, you hopefully can learn that, um, in seminary, especially if you're like living in good community and stuff, but like learning how to love and lead people, um, is kind of just something you have to learn in the experience of being in your congregation or doing your work, whatever that is.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: So for me, when I got into the work that I was doing in Japan, I realized that, like I, I had no tangible skills and how to like actually run a ministry, like how to delegate, how to build teams, how to, I don't know, just like invest in people and to be a leader in that kind of way.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: And so that was a real struggle for me honestly throughout the whole three years that I was there.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: I got better at it as I got to know people and kind of like built relationships with people and kind of like learned how to ask for help.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: But I got into my job and realized like I was just doing everything by myself because I didn't know how to like delegate or build a team or like cast vision or any of that kind of stuff.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: So that's one of the things I kind of just had to learn by trial and error, like throwing ideas against the wall and seeing what stuck.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Uh, especially because my degree before was a, it was a master's of theology in like church history, so it wasn't really like practical theology focused, it wasn't really ministry focused.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: Um, so I felt like I lacked a lot of the skills of just like I was a youth and children's director and I didn't really know how to lead a youth group, if I'm being perfectly honest.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: Like I had done youth group youth work before, but there's so many like hard skills that you just don't necessarily learn in seminary.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: So like you working with youth, running a youth program, running a children's ministry, leading small groups in bible studies, like providing pastoral care to people, even if you take pastoral care classes, the actual like nitty gritty moment of like sitting down with somebody who's going through something excruciatingly painful and like having pastoral presence or like having pastoral presence when there's, it's Christmas Eve and there's like 10,000 things going on that you're responsible for and everybody's asking you like, and being able to keep cool and run, run a program in that context, like that's all stuff you just kind of have to learn from, from the experience.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: And that's stuff that I'm super glad I got the opportunity to be exposed to.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: And I do feel like it's provided me the vision to be able to come back to seminary with a lot more clarity of what I actually want out of this.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: Like I really want to learn how to lead teams, like how to hold council meetings, how to manage church finances, how to do community organizing.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: Like those are the kind of practical hard skills that I feel like I'm able to come back to seminary with.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: Like knowing that I need to grow in those things.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: I have a clearer sense of my growth edges I guess.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: And I think that's been really helpful to me and it's helped me like care less about my grades and like when I was here before, I was just like trying to do really well academically, um, and really stressed about like getting A's and stuff.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: But I, I care so much less about that now because I know I what I need to learn and if I get that out of it then I'm happy, even if my grades don't look like amazing, you know?
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: Retweet on that grade's not looking amazing.
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: But I'm trying to think.
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: I think the main, main skill that I was able to hone or at least start developing, um, in when I was living in in Harlem this past year is ba basically was how to make theology relatable.
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: So if you're in seminary, you know, and it, it really does live up to kind of the stereotype of like the theology nerds.
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: So you can say all this jargon and stuff, right?
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: And I don't even think I know really most of the jargon or you know, all these different notebooks and such.
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: Well when you have a, a woman come to the shelter and she's just gonna have a domestic violence situation and she feels terrible and the church has hurt her whole life, I can't be sitting down with her saying, okay, let's look into the liberation theology of, you know, ASCO Romero or something like that.
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: I'm like, it's great stuff, but that's just not what people want to hear.
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: But what I have learned in seminary is still so valuable, right?
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: And we're doing it for a reason.
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: And so I learned how to make that like theology just kind of make it a little more relatable.
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: Um, but also just more, um, impactful and like the day they lie, people who are really, really hurting, especially, um, people in the, in the margins.
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: And so yeah, just, I think I like what Audrey was saying too, of you're learning how, how to love because I think we kind of, we, we, we know how to do that immediately the moment we're born.
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: And then I feel like as we get farther into, you know, competitive areas in life, whether it be seminary or most under any area in, in life in this country, we kind of, um, forget how to, how to love.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: And so I would, I would retweet that.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: Um, but one of the ways that I've learned how to love others in this past year is to have like all of my really, like most of my, um, actions being informed by the theology that I have learned in, in seminary.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: Um, and it just puts everything into perspective I think, to experience like what at least, you know, I, I experienced in the last couple years working in the shelter and such.
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: So I guess one of the concrete examples of, you know, generally a lot of, you know, people in the population, um, that I was really blessed to serve would, you know, come in and part of the program at, at the, at the shelter is that there are a lot of options for Bible studies and such.
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: And if a client wanted to go to a Bible study or maybe sometimes they were like compulsory to go to Bible studies, but it was many times meant with, well, I guess like indigency, but also just of thinking, well I haven't gone to church in so long, you know, God has forgotten about me.
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: Or I, um, you know, or many clients would just say, you know, you, you pray for me Carter, um, cuz I can't pray for myself cause I don't know God now.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: Well a lot of the theology that I was learning back in school could teach us that like, yeah, we all do know God.
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: And so I was able to say that with much more confidence in myself and able to point to different, you know, verses or maybe examples in my life or even their lives or even in themselves.
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: And I was like, of course God loves you.
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: It doesn't, you know, I'm not saying you're gonna have the easiest time with it, but um, here are ways where we can see that God does love you and is, you know, holding you through these through these times and here are some, you know, comforting words, here's some comforting stories or Bible stories, that kinda stuff.
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: So that's I think was like a big thing for me because I was not able to do that at all before my, um, my time in the shelter for sure.
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: I didn't, I wouldn't have no one to say at all, you know, and I didn't know to say it all in the beginning, but you learn, you learn, um, just with like living with people and realizing that we're all pretty similar we're all pretty the same with people who were like coming off literally right off the streets.
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: And I don't know, their, their problems were not dissimilar for like most of their problems that people have and in life, you know, it was just the the degree to which they had their issues and other a lot of societal issues too.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: So anyways.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: That's really interesting.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Have each of you noticed a difference?
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying you should always be comparing yourself to your peers, but when you are working, say in a group with other, your fellows, seminary students and some of you have had this experience, whether it be taking a gap year, going to get some, going to take, uh, get a little more time sort of as you were saying in the real world, do you sense a difference of perspective when you're working with others or talking to some of your fellow seminary students about whether it be about theology or about how things are done in a church or things like that, that you feel, not saying that you know better or superior by any means, but you notice a difference of perspective, if that makes sense compared to those who maybe have not done that.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: And I, and I ask that because I'm an alum of the young adult volunteer program and something that I know they, that seminaries always like to have, um, the young adult volunteers or yas because we did a, a year of service for a lifetime of change and they always say, Yas come in with a, a little bit of a different perspective than some other students that when they, when they apply.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: So I'm curious if, for you all you sort of feel a difference or notice a difference when you're working with your, with your classmates, whether it or talking with your classmates, um, as a result of your experience.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: That's an interesting question.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: You know, I, I wouldn't wanna like throw shade on other classmates, but I do think that like seminary sometimes gets a bad reputation and rightfully so for cultivating like scholarship but not necessarily like pastoral sensibilities.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: And I think I sense that that's the case and I, um, I, I sense that in myself too, especially when I was here the first time I went to a bible and theology school for undergrad as well.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: So it was kind of a similar situation there where you have students coming through this program who, you know, like a bible and theology undergrad who goes straight to seminary and think they're gonna become pastors, um, like their God's gift to the church and to the world, you know?
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: Um, but they really have no practical experience of of doing ministry or being in that situation.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: And I think the change of perspective to me is just like the focus on people and the knowledge, like the knowledge of one's own limitations.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: Like I think sometimes we're in seminary and we're doing so much academic study that we think it's important to like be right about everything, to like be theologically correct and to like have our dogmatics and our our ideas all in a row to have like all of our loose ends tied up or something.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: Uh, but to me, like what gets opened up to you when you actually do ministry is just like the vast unknowableness like of how much you don't know and how much you have to learn.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: Um, so sometimes seminary does not cultivate that kind of humility, but ministry does.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: And I definitely sense that difference in those who have more time out of school, um, who've kind of been doing that kind of work.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: I think especially in like second career, third career students who've are coming to seminary after they've even had like a lifetime of ministry.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: Like the kind of humility that that cultivates is like really lovely and I think um, is something that maybe seminary could do a little bit better to help us cultivate, but also maybe just comes from like the experience of being in the world.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: Well,
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: Well there's a difference but we also all bring different gifts and skills to this place.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: And that is something that's like, that, that's something that is so unique about seminary, even more so than other master's program.
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: So like I have a business background and I have a undergraduate degree in international business and finance and was in the corporate world before coming seminary.
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: So I'm coming from a space where there's even more, um, let's say megalomania and greed, whereas that's going to exist anywhere humans are.
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: Um, and that does exist where humans are here in seminary.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: But I mean, you're gonna, you're gonna see power, um, in the negative effects of power anywhere, where you see humans.
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: I feel like the way that it plays out in seminary is what kind of, what Abre was saying kind of made me think about this is we like to know exactly or our goal is to know exactly what we believe, right?
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: And to have like all of our theology it out and and organized and to a t And so you can say, so it's identity politics kind of.
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: I can say, well I'm a, I wanna go with a Calvinist rap or no, um, you know, I'm X, Y or z I'm not even gonna name all these different like things cuz then it, i, I don't even know all the names, but I feel like even if you look at where we all sit at like our lunch tables, we're sitting with people who think along our lines theologically and or politically right?
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: Cuz they have a lot of crossover there too.
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: And I think for people, and I would, I wouldn't include myself in this now, but for people who have more experience and the outside world, I don't wanna say real world cuz seminary's still real world, it's just smaller.
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: But for people who either have out outside knowledge of whether they're like Adre and I, they go away for a bit or their second or third career or maybe they've just had a fantastic field education experience and you know, they're really young, but they had a great field experience over the summer or currently this year.
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you can first share first share tell a difference.
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: And I think the way that that exhibits itself is just being able to sit down with other people with a literally visited lunch table or you'll hang out with'em outside or just having conversation within class that it doesn't turn into a polarizing, um, conversation and situation.
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: Because that I feel like is pretty, I I I find that all the time.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: I don't know if it's just this seminary or maybe, I don't know what it is, but it is a lot of things can be pretty, um, like polarizing.
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: Well you don't agree with me on this and I'm not gonna talk with you, you know, and it's on like really like some, some big things that make sense to do that right?
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: You know, you can't be tolerant everything for sure.
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: But when it comes down to like small details in a bible passage and how are you gonna interpret like one Greek word, my god, just like agree to disagree or something on that.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: Just like be aware that, you know, Jesus was asked so many questions, but he asked even more than he was asked and he asked more questions than he answered and he lived in this gray area of, of questioning all the time.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: And I feel like people who are, who have experiences like us, whether it's like a fielded thing or going now out into more of the real world, outside world or whatever it is, or it's just like how they were brought up, they can exi they can exist in these kind of like gray spaces.
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: Um, and that can hopefully will make us even even better pastors because that's where we're gonna be, um, serving, right?
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: Especially as a church is more and more into the margins, which is where it should be.
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: We're going to be with people who, who, who like, are not gonna wanna play or are not gonna be able to play those dumb identity politics things and know about a specific, you know, Greek term and like one small verse or whatever.
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna have like a whole conversation about it.
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: So I feel like something that, you know, this sets us apart maybe from other students or just other people, not necessarily students, is that we can live in those, in those kind of in between and not so sure spaces and still know, um, how to love the people around us.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: As I'm thinking about the experiences that each of you have, have had, you both also share this experience of being out in ministry context, but not as ordained pastors, but still in leadership positions and particularly leadership positions as women in whe whether it's a congregational setting or in a, a more s um, more social services justice context.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: And you did that in the context also of a pandemic.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: And also for you Audrey, in the context of being far away in a, in a, for lack of a better word, a foreign context.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: And in your case, Carter, even just being in New York, I say just being in New York, being in New York, being in a, in a completely different like place is still foreign in the sense that it's different.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: And so I'm curious since you mentioned the p pandemic earlier, how you think being active in whether it was congregational setting or services, how that helped shape your experience as well.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Audre, you were talking earlier about I, you know, how do I, I'm a youth director, how do I do this?
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Then you add in a layer of maybe some cultural difference and the pandemic and now you are dealing with so many balls in the air and so many things to navigate.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: How did you do it and how do you think that might be helpful as you're not just in seminary, but in your ministry going forward?
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: And in your case Carter trying to do social, any sort of social services in the context of not being able to be with people physically and then trying to navigate the pandemic, obviously very difficult.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: So just for each of you, I'm curious, uh, if you have any thoughts on that.
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, um, well it was a lot.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: I can say, it was, um, far more than I expected when I went, I got to, um, I got to Japan in the summer of 2019 and so I was going into a new role in the church, was going through a ton of transition.
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: Both of the pastors ended up transitioning out of the church in the first like four months that I was there.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: Um, so the church was already going through tremendous transition and then the pandemic came.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: So obviously, I don't know, I look back at that time and I'm not really sure how we got through it and I think that's probably true for a lot of people who were in ministry.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: I, to me, like my biggest conviction was just to do everything I could to stay in touch, especially with our teenagers, um, to like remain in contact and remain in community.
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: Um, that like the fact that we stuck together, that we were checking in with each other, that they knew that they were cared about, that they had spaces to like process stuff.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: Like those were my primary priorities.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: And honestly it was just a process of like, like I said before, throwing things against the wall, it felt like, and seeing what worked.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: There was a lot of experimentation that happened.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: So I think what I learned from that was just that it's okay, first of all it's okay for ideas not to work and to like retire things that aren't working.
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: Um, and to have humility about that sometimes that can hurt and be painful to like realize that your I big great idea, um, isn't gonna work in your context.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: Um, but also just to be creative and to, to try new things and let yourself get stretched.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean obviously with Covid and with like the kind of distinct culture of the church that I was working at and all of that stuff was a lot to kind of weed your way through, but I don't know, I am not exactly sure how we did it, but we did.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: And honestly like we had quite a successful, I mean I look at that time and think that it was successful.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: Like it wasn't necessarily successful and like that we had huge numbers or that we like grew as a ministry or, um, we did actually grow as a ministry, especially the children's ministry by the time that I was leaving.
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: But I mostly measured the success of that just in terms of like the connections that we were able to sustain and like the depth of those connections that actually like grew in depth because of a pandemic.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: Um, so to me, even though it was like very, very hard, it was such a fruitful time.
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: So that's, that's one thing.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know if that exactly answers the question,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: But no, I think that's, I think that's really insightful and really interesting and it's something that will inform and your experiences and your, your ministry going forward.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: What a what about you Carter?
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: I know that in your context that was also probably pretty difficult, the Covid 19 situation.
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I'll say I wouldn't have had this experience if it weren't for the pandemic and I don't want that to be, you know, just like a silver lining.
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: It was basically the, the brokenness and the hurt that I felt through the pandemic caused me to want something else for a little while.
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: And I was, you know, very privileged and fortunate enough that I could do this.
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: So where I was with Bowery Mission, it was like a paid job and I was able to live right there, um, in the, in the shelter.
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: So I was a live-in, uh, live-in staff.
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: I was the only live-in staff for much of it actually.
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: And so I was, it's interesting, you know, the pandemic was going on.
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: Um, I started there in like spring of 2021, um, so already vaccinated and such, so kind of a new new part of the pandemic, but it was still definitely raging on especially, um, in social services and such.
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: And in our neighborhood, the low vaccination rates, um, caused some issues as well.
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: So I definitely still felt like the brunt of the pandemic and with the restrictions, but at least in my line of work, whereas maybe the rest of the country or maybe the rest of the state or city didn't experience that as much.
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: So for me it affected us, you know, and this is the restrictions, like that's, they're just how they are.
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: It's, it's really not that big a deal.
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: You kind of forget you have a mask on after like a little while.
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: Um, but restrictions really impact, or the, I guess I should say Covid impacted us, um, in what we did more.
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: So, um, I'd say like psychologically and mentally, so you think about the population who's experiencing homelessness all around the country, but especially in New York City, they're just so vulnerable to, at that time I was there while vaccines were still kind of being rolled out so vulnerable to being infected with the virus.
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: Um, and they had like Covid hotels that as quote unquote Covid hotels that New York City like health department was, they were running.
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: Um, but even just going to one of those from, from being in a homeless situation like that is already traumatic in itself.
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: So we had a lot of clients coming from, from those orients who maybe if they got covid while they were in the shelter, they had to go to one of those homeless, um, sorry, um, COVID hotels, basically four people experiencing homelessness.
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: And that was really, really tough.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: So anytime that happened, which was like quite frequently, even if a client was vaccinated, we did not have the capability, the space to have like a covid unit of the shelter.
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: Now everyone wore masks and such, but we couldn't really, and we didn't have the, the space or the resources to just have like all of, you know, any covid positive clients in a certain space.
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: And so it was safer for everyone if they went to a ho hotel.
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: And that was like probably one of the tougher things was that is already like a tr traumatic experience.
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: And so just them coming back from that was like, that's when my job got even harder with holding the, the pain, um, that clients had that just kind of multiplied and multiplied every day.
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: They were either in quarantine, waiting results, uh, the shelter or being covid positive in the, in the hotel.
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: Um, so it was such a tender time for our population, whereas the rest of the, the city, especially in summer of 2021 and then through the fall of 2021, it was just flourishing, right?
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: So everyone was so excited they were vaccinated.
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: The city overall did a pretty good job, a very good job of getting the vaccination rates up, but in our neighborhood, like wasn't as great and, and so everyone else was just having so much fun doing all these great things and then we were like, oh wait, who's got Covid this week?
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: And who these like quarantine and such?
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: And so it was like definitely a constant stress like dealing with that as well as trying to, and, and I was thinking about what Audrey was saying too, as well as trying to build community in the midst of everything.
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: So that was a big part of my job, um, was how do we do this community thing in, uh, an authentic way and try to, you know, help help the clients with different like, um, like social skills and being able to, you know, I guess ha have different programs that are trauma informed but also got going with the restrictions and guidelines related to Covid.
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: That was, that was very difficult.
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: I remember so many times I'd have to like have a client hold like a taper measurer and then measure from client to client and make sure we were, and it was awful to make sure we're all, you know, six plus feet apart.
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: And it was crazy, um, to have to do that without just like the nature of it, um, if we ever wanted to be together.
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: So that was like very difficult.
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: But I think, think, I think we probably lost some community due to that honestly, that like some clients are just not into doing the covert the different like community building things because of the Covid restrictions, but the few who did, you know, it was all right and we had, we had some good times with them for like the few who wanted to do that.
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: But I almost feel like sometimes I just, I think what I've learned from that, I just had such a yearning that I really wanted like a specific goal and vision to come out of like the community building times, whether it's, you know, a class or Bible study or you know, yoga or whatever it is.
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: And I have this idea that like, okay, we're all gonna be together but in a safe way and we're gonna have fun in this, in this particular way and it'll be great, but that's just not what people wanted and what people needed.
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: And so I think I learned a lot about like what meeting people where they are and understanding what they actually want, um, and what they actually need as opposed to just like, you know, putting on a, you know, yoga and no one wants to do it or something like that.
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: So that was, that was definitely like the steep learning curve for me because I hadn't worked with a population in this particular population before.
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: And I also hadn't worked much with like other people in the pandemic.
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: I had only done like online work for like a year, you know, um, until going there.
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: So it was a huge transition for me that like, yes, COVID was going on, but we were all physically together living there in the shelter trying to figure out how to keep everyone safe.
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: And it was hectic and, but also trying to figure out how, like to be mentally safe by having something to do other than, you know, just like watch TV in separate rooms or something, right?
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: And to, to be good stewards of the different resources and spaces that we had, but keep people safe.
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: So that was, it was very difficult.
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: I don't know if I would even call it a success, but you know, we've had a few people from that season who have a few clients from that season who are doing really well now.
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: So maybe that's, I guess, a success.
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: Um, maybe we, hopefully we set up the culture so that when restrictions, like not right now restrictions are not as strict.
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: Um, and the culture is looking pretty good in the shelter.
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: I go up and I work there a couple times a month and, um, and it's, we're looking a lot better than when, when it was like the height of covid.
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: So maybe that is success, but it's hard to not like see the fruit of your success of, of what you sow really, you know,, um, that's like the really tough part of the ministry, any ministry.
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: But that was really tough about this ministry too, is that there was like very difficult.
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: Um, but I don't think I'll really be able, if there's any success in it, I think God will see that, but I don't really know if I'm gonna be able to see that.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: And two, to what both of you were saying earlier, success also isn't indicated by a letter grade.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: And that success in ministry has many forms, especially in the face of the unexpected, like a pandemic or some other major event that just no one sees coming.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: And so I'm really grateful for the work that you, you both did and continue to do and I'm excited to see, uh, where your ministries will go and how they will flourish.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: But I'm also just super grateful to both of you for coming on the podcast to talk about this with us and hopefully give some insight and some food for thought for folks who might be considering taking some sort of a gap year experience during their seminary education.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: So thank you again to you, Audrey, and to you Carter for being here with us today.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: Thanks,
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: Simon.
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: It's been a pleasure.
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: What an honor.
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: Thank you Simon.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Thanks everyone for listening to a matter of Fate, a Presby podcast, and thanks to Carter and Audrey for being a guest this week on the podcast.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: It was a great conversation.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: And also everyone, happy New Year and we hope you have a great 2023.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: We also hope that you follow us or subscribe wherever you get your podcast, and we hope you leave us a review and give us those five stars.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: And also, if you have any questions for us, always send those to fate podcasts@peaceusa.org and check at our website a matter of fate podcasts.com.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: We will talk to you again next week.